Calendar of the Land
Landian year The Land was created by God at the stroke of midnight on the date which would later come to be called 1 Fir'mo', LY 1. Furthermore, at that same moment, elsewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, the date was January 1, 1997 CE on Earth. ("LY" is the abbreviation for "Landian Year," and "CE" is the abbreviation for "Common Era." Over the millennia, Earth (aka "Terra") has had a number of different systems for numbering its years, though Landians have little reason to concern themselves with any but CE, and possibly "BCE" or "Before the Common Era," which are also respectively known as "AD" and "BC," for reasons that are of no relevance to Landian reckoning. To even mention any of Earth's other calendar systems would needlessly complicate things.) It has long been understood that Earth and the Land are of the same size, distance from their respective suns, etc., for reasons that will no doubt become apparent in the distant future. Both worlds also have one moon, the same size and distance from its planet. Both planets have the same rotational and revolutional periods (that is, days and years), and that their respective moons have the same revolutional periods (that is, months). The Land makes a complete revolution of its sun in approximately 365 and a quarter days. However, on both worlds, a year is normally regarded as exactly 365 days. (For information on how the quarter day is dealt with, see Quad Years.) Landian months Years are broken up into months which last either 30 or 31 days each. (On Earth there is one month that is 28 days long, for a reason which has never been explained to Landians by any of the spirits who provide us with knowledge of other worlds such as Earth. Because of this discrepancy, there is a period lasting from the end of Win'yet to the end of Sp'yet during which the numbering of days on the Land differs from that of Earth. For more imformation, see "Schism Day" in Holidays of the Land.) Because of contact with spirits, as mentioned, people of the Land know many things about other worlds, and Earth has always been of particular interest to Landians. One thing of which we are aware is the names of their months (in one of that world's languages, at least), though the origins of those names is unclear and potentially confusing. Because of that, the first two people, Connor and Brigid (who had been keeping track of the passage of days with God's help, ever since Day 1), decided to come up with their own names for each of the 12 months of the year. The system they devised may seem strange, given that they lived very nearly on the Equator, and therefore experienced relatively little change in the different seasons of the year; however, from the earliest days they were fascinated by stories of different seasons as experienced in climate zones farther north or south of the Equator than they could possibly travel. People on Earth (and other worlds) had long been affected in fundamentally important ways by the changing seasons, and Connor and Brigid knew that someday, people on the Land would explore their own world far and wide, as well. And so, they based the names of the months on the four seasons, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Each season would cover a period of roughly three months, astronomically speaking (which led to the celebration of the changing of the seasons for four two-day periods each year; see Holidays of the Land.) Consequently, each month within the three-month period would be given a name based on the season it occupied. The month during which each new season began would be named by a contraction of that season's name and "'gin," short for "begin." The first full month of each season would be named by a contraction of that season's name and "'mo'," short for "month." The last full month of each season would be named by a contraction of that season's name and "'yet" (yet, as in "still"). The only two exceptions to this rule are Las'mo', so named for being the last month of the year, which otherwise would have been called "Win'gin," and Fir'mo', so named for being the first mont of the year, which otherwise would have been called "Win'mo'." Therefore, Winter is only represented in in the name of one month instead of three. (In the years since the founding of villages in what is sometimes called the Northern Alliance, it has become a popular joke in that area to comment that not naming the months after Winter didn't make them any less cold. In fact it is also common in northern villages to complain that Winter seems to last longer than any other season.) Chart of a Landian Year Landian weeks Another thing about Earth of which we are aware is that their months are divided into weeks, and each week is divided into seven days. Just as they had done with the renaming of our months, Connor and Brigid decided to give Landian days their own names. They also decided that, unlike on Earth, it would make sense to have the first day of each month also fall on the first day of each week. Thus they decided that the number of days in a month should be divisible by the number of days in a week. And so, Landian months consist of five 6-day weeks, with an extra day for months numbering 31 days. (Earth's months consist of irregular numbers of weeks, most commonly about four weeks, and sometimes about five; therefore their years consist of about 52 weeks. This differs from the Land's years, which consist of exactly 60 weeks.) We'ginday: The name given to the first day of the week is a contraction of "week's beginning day." The first day of each week was also designated as a day of rest (and in 404, The Order introduced the idea of using We'ginday as a day of worship, to gather at church). Wor'ginday: Because the first day of the week is a day of rest, the work begins on the second day, hence the name being a contraction of "work's beginning day." Tuesday: The third day of the week stumped Connor and Brigid, so they set the question of its name aside and came back to it after naming the other days of the week. Finally, they just gave up, and decided to go with "Tuesday," which is what it was called on Earth (at least in one of that planet's languages). Ha'day (pronounced "hay day"): The fourth day's name is a contraction of "half day," meaning that it comes half way through the week. (Technically there is only one week per month out of only five months of the year- or six on Quad Years- in which Ha'day is exactly half way through the week, but they ignored that nagging detail, just because.) Penul'day: The fifth day's name is a contraction of "penultimate day." (This caused the opposite problem as with Ha'day, since on the same weeks when Ha'day was truly half way through the week, Penul'day was not, in fact, the penultimate day of the week, but rather the day before the penultimate day. Again, they ignored that detail.) We'yetday The sixth day's name is a contraction of "week yet day" (that is, still the same week, just as "yet" was used for the names of the last full months of each season). This is the last day of each work week, and usually the last day of the entire week. Mo'endday: On months with 31 days instead of 30, they added a seventh day to the final week of the month. Its name is a contraction of "month's end day." This, like We'ginday, was designated as a day of rest and/or play. (There have been those who have complained, throughout the Land's history, that Earth having seven days every week means they get two days off per week, whereas Landians usually get only one day off per week, and only rarely two. On the other hand, some people appreciate the fact that that makes us enjoy our Mo'enddays all the more. Still others like to think it means Landians get more done in a week than Terrans, or at least more done in a month- since, as on Earth, Landians still only work five days a week, but work 25 days per month, as opposed to about 20 on Earth.) Weekin: It should be noted that on Earth, people have a time of week called the "weekend," which is comprised of their days "Saturday" (which essentially corresponds to Mo'endday on the Land, except that it comes every week of the year, instead of only five times a year (six on quad years), and "Sunday" (which corresponds to We'ginday on the Land). It isn't really understood why they call these two days a week''end'', when technically they are the last and first day of the week, but one supposes it's a matter of convenience. The important point is that these two days are days of rest, and that the days are together rather than being separated by other days of the week. On the Land, we have a similar concept called "weekins," which originally was just a corrupted form of "We'ginday," though at some point it seems to have evolved from "gin" to "in," that is, coming into a new week. In a similar fashion, people sometimes refer to We'yetday as the "weekout," though this is somewhat less common than the term weekin. Also at some unknown point, it became common to use the word weekin to refer to both We'ginday and Mo'endday, in weeks which actually have a Moendday. This is of course just as inaccurate as the term weekend on Earth, just in the opposite way. It's unknown whether this expression came about specifically as a way of mimicking Terran culture or if it's merely a coincidence. Chart of a Landian Month Quad Years As mentioned earlier, the Land actually makes a full revolution of its sun in about 365 1/4 days. (The exact orbital period is not quite consistent, but is closer to 365.2425 days per solar year.) Since it would be inconvenient to reckon a year as changing a quarter of the way through its final day, we instead reckon years as 365 days, with an extra day once every four years. (On the Land, these are called Quad Years, whereas on Earth they're called Leap Years.) The Land's first Quad Year was LY 4, which was 2000 CE, on Earth; the Land's quad years and Earth's leap years occur simultaneously. However, because it's not exactly an extra quarter day per year, three would-be Quad Years out of every four centuries are skipped. In order to remain consistent with Terran Leap Years, the first Quad Year to be skipped on the Land was LY 104 (2100 CE), with years ending in 04 being Quad Years every fourth century thereafter*. Chart of Quad Years *LY 104, 204, 304, 504, 604, 704, and 904 were not Quad Years. See also *Daycycles *Holidays of the Land *Timeline of the Land Category:Culture